What We Left Behind by Robin Talley

What We Left Behind by Robin Talley

Toni and Gretchen are the couple everyone envied in high school. They’ve been together forever. They never fight. They’re deeply, hopelessly in love. When they separate for their first year at college—Toni to Harvard and Gretchen to NYU—they’re sure they’ll be fine. Where other long-distance relationships have fallen apart, theirs is bound to stay rock-solid.

The reality of being apart, though, is very different than they expected. Toni, who identifies as genderqueer, meets a group of transgender upperclassmen and immediately finds a sense of belonging that has always been missing, but Gretchen struggles to remember who she is outside their relationship… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Transmisia & transmisic slurs
  • Homomsia
  • Lesbomisia
  • Queermisia
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As I Descended by Robin Talley

As I Descended by Robin Talley

Maria Lyon and Lily Boiten are their school’s ultimate power couple—even if no one knows it but them.

Only one thing stands between them and their perfect future: campus superstar Delilah Dufrey.

Golden child Delilah is a legend at the exclusive Acheron Academy, and the presumptive winner of the distinguished Cawdor Kingsley Prize. She runs the school, and if she chose, she could blow up Maria and Lily’s whole world with a pointed look, or a carefully placed word… Read more.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism
  • Queermisia
  • Outing
  • Disownment
  • Self-harm
  • Suicide
  • Forced drug use
  • Murder
  • Knife violence
  • Drowning
  • Bullying
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Our Own Private Universe by Robin Talley

Our Own Private Universe by Robin Talley

Fifteen-year-old Aki Simon has a theory. Aki already knows she’s bisexual—even if, until now, it’s mostly been in the hypothetical sense. Aki has dated only guys so far, and her best friend, Lori, is the only person who knows she likes girls, too.

Actually, Aki’s theory is that she’s got only one shot at living an interesting life—and that means it’s time for her to actually do something. So when Aki and Lori set off on a church youth-group trip to a small Mexican town for the summer and Aki meets Christa it seems her theory is prime for the testing.

But it’s not going to be easy. For one thing, how exactly do two girls have sex, anyway? And more important, how can you tell if you’re in love?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Ableism & ableist language
  • Racism
  • Lesbomisia
  • Bimisia
  • Poverty themes
  • Death of a relative in combat
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Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

Sarah Dunbar is one of the first black students to attend the previously all-white Jefferson High School. An honors student at her old school, she is put into remedial classes, spit on and tormented daily.

Linda Hairston is the daughter of one of the town’s most vocal opponents of school integration. She has been taught all her life that the races should be kept separate but equal.

Forced to work together on a school project, Sarah and Linda must confront harsh truths about race, power and how they really feel about one another.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism (theme)
  • Internalised lesbomisia
  • Child abuse
  • Bullying
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Pulp by Robin Talley

Pulp by Robin Talley

In 1955, eighteen-year-old Janet Jones keeps the love she shares with her best friend Marie a secret. It’s not easy being gay in Washington, DC, in the age of McCarthyism, but when she discovers a series of books about women falling in love with other women, it awakens something in Janet. As she juggles a romance she must keep hidden and a newfound ambition to write and publish her own story, she risks exposing herself—and Marie—to a danger all too real.

Sixty-two years later, Abby Zimet can’t stop thinking about her senior project and its subject—classic 1950s lesbian pulp fiction. Between the pages of her favorite book, the stresses of Abby’s own life are lost to the fictional hopes, desires and tragedies of the characters she’s reading about. She feels especially connected to one author, a woman who wrote under the pseudonym “Marian Love,” and becomes determined to track her down and discover her true identity.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Racism
  • Homomisia
  • Transmisia
  • Outing mentioned
  • Suicide
  • Murder mentioned
  • Car accident mentioned
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Graveyard Shift in Ghost Town by Michael Pryor

Graveyard Shift in Ghost Town by Michael Pryor

Graveyard Shift in Ghost Town by Michael Pryor book cover

So, how’s my gap year going? Is it giving me a taste of the ghost-hunting business or is it just dumping me into situations where I could end up dead, or worse?

Lingerers. Moaners. Thugs. Weepers. So many ghosts. Not enough graveyard shifts in a night.

When an extreme ghost plague descends on the city, Anton and Rani must work overtime to keep the city safe and to find the source of the new aggressive ghost outbreak. And it amps up to another level after ghost hunters become the hunted.

Anton and Rani will need all their wits and wiles about them if they are to manage the ghost influx, get to the truth about the Elsewhere and navigate the night with all their limbs intact.

Graveyard Shift in Ghost Town is thoroughly entertaining and full of nail-biting ghostly action and adventure.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Murder
  • Torture
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Harley Quinn: Break Glass by Mariko Tamaki

Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Steve Pugh

Harleen is a tough, outspoken, rebellious kid who lives in a ramshackle apartment above a karaoke cabaret owned by a drag queen named MAMA. Ever since Harleen’s parents split, MAMA has been her only family. When the cabaret becomes the next victim in the wave of gentrification that’s taking over the neighborhood, Harleen gets mad.

When Harleen decides to turn her anger into action, she is faced with two choices: join Ivy, who’s campaigning to make the neighborhood a better place to live, or join The Joker, who plans to take down Gotham one corporation at a time.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Gentrification
  • Explosions
  • Fire
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This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki

This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki

Every summer, Rose goes with her mom and dad to a lake house in Awago Beach. It’s their getaway, their refuge. Rosie’s friend Windy is always there, too, like the little sister she never had. But this summer is different. Rose’s mom and dad won’t stop fighting, and when Rose and Windy seek a distraction from the drama, they find themselves with a whole new set of problems. It’s a summer of secrets and sorrow and growing up, and it’s a good thing Rose and Windy have each other.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Slut-shaming
  • Attempted suicide
  • Miscarriage
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Gap Year in Ghost Town by Michael Pryor

Gap Year in Ghost Town by Michael Pryor

Gap Year in Ghost Town by Michael Pryor book cover

Let’s get this straight – ghosts are everywhere. I can see them. You can’t. And, see them or not, they’re dangerous. This is why my family has hunted ghosts for hundreds of years to protect people like you.

The Marin family are outcasts of the ghost hunting world. They run a two-man operation in inner city Melbourne. Anton has the Ghost-sight, but his father does not.

Rani Cross is supremely skilled in hand-to-hand combat, with enhanced speed and strength thanks to her magical initiation into the Company of the Righteous.

When it comes to ghost-hunting methodology, Anton and Rani don’t see eye to eye – Anton likes to ‘ease their passage’ to the next world, while Rani’s all about the slashing.

But Melbourne is under threat; with a massive spike in violent ghost manifestations, Anton and Rani must find a way to work together to keep supernatural forces at bay.

And what with all the blindingly terrifying brushes with death, Anton must decide if he really wants in on the whole ghost hunting biz anyway.

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Parental abandonment
  • Death of a friend
  • Death of a child
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Saving Montgomery Sole by Mariko Tamaki

Saving Montgomery Sole by Mariko Tamaki

This is the curious instruction that comes with the Eye of Know, the possibly powerful crystal amulet that Montgomery Sole buys online for $5.99. It’s also the next topic of discussion at Mystery Club (members: Monty and her two best friends, Thomas and Naoki), dedicated to the exploration of the strange and unexplained.

When Monty wears the Eye of Know, strange things happen, all targeted at people she despises. Maybe it will help Monty take down her newest enemy, a preacher who has come to save her town from so-called sinners—sinners like Monty’s moms. Or will its mysterious powers mean the end of the friendships Monty cherishes most?

GoodreadsThe Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia & homomisic slurs
  • Sexual assault
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